


bluff the errant terrors

by 8The_Great_Perhaps8



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Coping, Gallows Humor, Gen, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, i just stole this all from me and my friend ''''''''''''''''coping'''''''''''''''''' so theres that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-16 04:47:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11821536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8The_Great_Perhaps8/pseuds/8The_Great_Perhaps8
Summary: Percy and Cassandra talk about the Briarwoods, on occasion.





	bluff the errant terrors

**Author's Note:**

> this reads like a short sequel to a much longer and more interesting fic, but i own this shit and i refuse to let my writing be anything less than fatally boring.

Percy doesn’t bother pretending to cope well with the Briarwoods. What are you supposed to do, when you discover that the people who killed your entire family and tried to kill you have taken over your family’s company? What do you do when they try to argue in court that you aren’t actually you? What do you do when they reveal that your sister isn’t actually dead, like you thought, and et cetera et cetera et cetera.

What Percy does, post-almost being murdered and post-proving to be himself, is mostly hang out in his workshop and make things for all the people who helped him in an effort to ensure that they don’t leave him again.

“That’s sweet,” Vex’ahlia says, “but, Percy, you don’t need to do this. I would have helped you no matter what.”

“I’m not saying no,” Vax’ildan says, “but we’re _family_. Of course I would have helped.”

“Sick,” says Scanlan, “but I have no idea what it is or why you’re giving it to me.”

“Aw, thanks!” Keyleth says, even though she definitely has no idea what Percy’s giving her. “Hang on, I have something for you, too!”

Pike doesn’t say much of anything. She just kisses him on the cheek and gives him that sad, sad look that she’s so good at.

“Does it explode?” Grog asks, after giving Percy one of his I-was-a-football-and-rugby-player-in-high-school-and-could-crush-you-with-one-finger hugs. Then, he runs off to prove Percy wrong when he says that it doesn’t.

On more than one occasion, Percy has gotten tired of his friends getting all pity-pity on him when he’s just trying to indulge in his unhealthy coping mechanisms, and that’s when he goes to Cassandra.

He knocks at her door, because she hates surprises and she has _always_ hated people coming into her room unannounced.

“Come in,” she always ends up saying, because Percy always knocks with the secret code knock that they’d made up when Cassandra was ten. It’s only some drumbeat from a sci-fi show that she used to like, but she thinks it’s secure enough, so Percy will try to agree.

“Oh, Percy,” she always says, like she’s surprised. “Coping?”

“I’m gonna kill myself,” he always says, after he carefully lies facedown on Cassandra’s carpet. “I just wanted to tell my beloved younger sister first.”

Cassandra always reaches her leg off her bed and plays with his hair with her toes. “Tragic,” she usually says, not looking up from her fashion magazine. “Dead with his sister’s toe gunk in his hair.”

Then he groans into the carpet, and she puts down her magazine and gets off her bed and sits next to him.

“Why are you being a stupid emo baby today?”

Percy turns so that his cheek is the only thing in the carpet. “Do you ever think about how fucked up it is that, for five years, we thought that each other were dead?”

Today, Cassandra reaches into the drawer of her nightstand and pulls out hot pink nail polish, then tugs Percy’s hand onto her knee. “Kind of a lot,” she says, painting over the chipped green nail polish leftover on Percy’s pinky from last week. “I went to your funeral.”

Percy groans. “I lit a candle for you every year. Like, after I remembered, I went out to your fucking candle store and bought a lavender-scented candle every year and I burned it for you.”

“That’s stupid,” Cassandra says, re-dipping the nail painting brush. “I don’t even like lavender anymore. Fucking Delilah wore lavender all the time.”

“Fucking Delilah,” Percy repeats. Maybe it’s not on any therapist’s list of coping mechanisms, but putting expletives in front of the names of people who’ve wronged you always makes the two de Rolos feel better. “Jesus. What do you like now, sandalwood? Do you even have a favorite candle scent anymore?”

Cassandra shrugs and moves to Percy’s ring finger. “Fucking Delilah and Fucking Sylas kept trying to, like, ‘bond’ with me or whatever, so I haven’t been interested in much of anything for the past five years.”

“Oh, we should do a field trip to that candle store you like. Yankees or whatever.”

Cassandra rolls her eyes. “Yankee candle. If we do a candle field trip, we have to do a field trip to that science museum you like. The museum of natal history.”

Percy snorts at Cassandra’s purposeful mispronunciation. “Sure. Then we can go for a walk in Centerfold Park.”

Cassandra giggles over Percy’s hand, and Percy smiles victoriously.

The two siblings are quiet for a moment.

“Hey,” Cassandra says suddenly, “do you ever think about how fucked up it is that Fucking Sylas and Fucking Delilah tried to brainwash me into forgetting that I was your sister?”

“Kind of a lot,” Percy says. Sometimes, when Percy has nightmares, it’s of when he and the Fucking Briarwoods and his sister were in the courtroom and the Fucking Briarwoods had given Cassandra a gun to kill him with. “Fucking Briarwoods. I bet they fucked goats in their free time.”

Cassandra giggles into her lap again. “That’s why they’re the _Fucking_ Briarwoods.” She finishes painting Percy’s middle finger and moves to his pointer finger. “I hate them so much, Percy.”

“I know,” Percy mumbles to her. The first time that they had done this, Percy had gotten up to hug her at that, but that just made her spill the nail polish and yell at him. Instead, he reaches over with his other hand and awkwardly hits her knee. “If it makes you feel better, Fucking Sylas is burning in Hell right now.”

Cassandra shrugs. “Only a little. They did a lot of fucked-up shit. I’m probably not gonna feel better for a while.”

Percy nods into the carpet and waits as Cassandra blows the nail polish dry.

“Roll over, I’m done with that hand.”

Percival rolls onto his back and offers her his right hand for her to paint.

“Do you ever think about how fucked up it is that the woman who tortured me for a week straight still hasn’t gotten caught?” Percy asks suddenly, and he feels Cassandra make a misstroke.

“I try not to,” Cassandra tells him (after a curse that he’s certain came from the Fucking Briarwoods). “Why do you think that I triple check all the locks every night? Why do you think that I blocked off the balcony? Why do you think that I don’t let you leave the house alone?”

Percy is silent for a moment. “Shit, Cassie, I thought that was you coping for you.”

Cassandra snorts. “No, shithead, that’s me coping to make sure that I don’t lose you again.”

Percy grimaces. “I’m sorry, Cass. I didn’t want to leave you behind.”

Cassandra shakes her head, and Percy can feel the ends of her hair brush his hand. “You did the right thing,” she says quietly. “If you hadn’t left, we both would’ve ended up totally brainwashed, getting fingers cut off whenever we don’t play the part right.”

“I don’t understand those foreign films that you like,” Percy tells her. “Cassie, my point is that you shouldn’t have to have gone through that alone.”

“Yeah, duh,” Cassandra says, moving to his next finger. “That shit shouldn’t have happened to either of us. You lost your fucking memory, you shouldn’t have gone through that alone.”

Percy grimaces again. “Fucking Briarwoods,” he says.

“Fucking Briarwoods,” Cassandra agrees. “Fucking Anders!”

“Fucking Anna!”

“Fucking Goran!”

“Fucking Kerrion!”

“Fucking Jazna!”

“Fucking goat-fucker Briarwoods,” Percy finishes, as Cassandra finishes painting his nails. “Fuckers.”

Cassandra snorts and puts the nail polish back in her nightstand. “Sit up,” she tells him. “I helped you cope by painting your nails, you need to help me cope by letting me fuck with your hair.”

Percy groans, but throws himself into criss-cross applesauce anyways. Cassandra moves behind him with her hairbrush and her comb and her enormous tupperware full of barrettes and various other hair accessories, and begins to comb.

“You know,” she says, after several minutes of combing- Percy’s hair takes a good half hour to get untangled, since he never bothers combing it himself- “we keep talking about how fucked up the Fucking Briarwoods made us, but I was wondering. Do you ever think about how fucked up it was that our parents didn’t hug us?”

Percy freezes, and Cassandra notices it, because she always does, when Percy freezes up.

“Maybe not,” she rushes to say, trying to make it right. “They must have hugged us. I must have just forgotten. It wasn’t fucked up.”

“No,” Percy says quietly. “No, shit, you’re right. They never fucking hugged us. That is fucked up.”

“Yeah,” Cassandra agrees quietly. “Fucking Delilah and Fucking Sylas loved hugging me.”

“Oh, Cassandra,” Percy says.

“Don’t hug me,” Cassandra rushes to say. “Don’t you fucking hug me until I finish your fucking hair. Do you even brush your hair?”

Percy snorts. “Not since the dinner.”

He doesn’t need to clarify. He says “the dinner,” but he means “THE dinner,” the dinner when everything went to shit.

Cassandra laughs. “I haven’t done my make-up by choice since then,” she tells him. “I haven’t fucking worn yellow since then. My dress was yellow, remember? I haven’t worn yellow since I wore that dress.”

Percy smiles. “I haven’t worn a suit since that night. Even in court, I was just wearing one of Vax’s button-downs.”

Cassandra laughs. “Fucking court. Didn’t the Fucking Briarwoods’ lawyers try to argue that you not wearing a suit meant that you weren’t you?”

Percy laughs back. “He tried to claim that I wasn’t me because I let everyone call me Percy.”

“And you tried to make him call you Lord Percival Fredrickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo the third, the whole thing!”

Percy positively cackles. “I had to be authentic! That’s my full name and title! I’m still mad that the judge made me let him call me Mister de Rolo.”

Cassandra laughs back, and finally lays down the comb. Percy hears her pull out a handful of barrettes, and she begins clipping them into his hair.

“So,” Cassandra says, as she pins a braid in the back of Percy’s hair with some kind of shaped barrette, “any exciting plans for this week?”

“I have therapy on Wednesday,” Percy lists out. “Keyleth and Vax want to go out for burgers on Friday. Scanlan said that he wants to take me to a concert on Sunday, and I don’t know if it’s going to be one of those concerts that’s just a coffee shop and some guy on an acoustic guitar or one of those concerts where we leave early because I keep thinking that someone poisoned me because everyone is bumping into me, so there’s that. What about you?”

“Jesus, I’m not as busy as you are, Mr. Popularity. I got therapy on Thursday instead of Tuesday this week, because the only day that Kynan is free is Tuesday, and he’s taking me to Staten Island because he thinks it’s a travesty that I haven’t ridden the Cyclone yet. And I have a maybe date with JB, Pike’s cousin, on Friday..”

“Kynan… Kynan the boy that Vax knocked out?” Percy tilts his head back as Cassandra reaches for the top of it to apply more unsightly decorations.

“Yeah, Percy, your boyfriend is an asshole. Kynan was only coming by to check in on me.” Cassandra leans back from Percy’s hair and admires her masterpiece. “Done. Wanna see how fucked up you look?”

“Oh, definitely,” Percy says, Cassandra already shoving a hand mirror at him. He squints at his reflection, and Cassandra has given him a mohawk of barrettes in various floral shapes, and has put a braid on each side of his head, which, he sees as he turns his head, end with barrettes that are shaped like Saturn. “I’m so beautiful.”

“Pretty pretty Percy,” Cassandra agrees, fishing her phone out from beneath her bed and taking pictures. “If I give you five dollars, will you leave them in for dinner?”

“Jesus Christ, Cassandra, I just came in here to cope. And now you’re accosting me and blackmailing me and harassing me.”

Cassandra smacks him upside the head. “Percy, I could kick your ass any day of the week.”

Percy laughs. “Do you ever think about how fucked up it is that the Fucking Briarwoods trained you to kick my ass?”

Cassandra shoves him away playfully. “Do _you_ ever think about how fucked up it is that you built your own gun? And then used it to rob a police station?”

Percy just laughs harder and winds up lying on the carpet again. “Do you ever think about how fucked up it is that I cope by making people things so that they won’t leave me?”

Cassandra groans and falls backwards on the carpet herself, positioning herself so that her legs are on top of Percy’s. “You think that you’re fucked up? I cope with everything by pretending not to have any emotions so that people don’t think that they can hurt me!”

“Jesus,” Percy says, staring at Cassandra’s ceiling. “Keyleth just drinks. We could try drinking.”

“I’m underage,” Cassandra says, and, after a moment, the two siblings both burst into laughter.

“Like it matters,” Percy finally says, and the two are quiet.

“Well,” Cassandra says, after a moment, “that’s all the healthy coping mechanisms that I can handle for today. I’m going to go overperform femininity since that was a defense mechanism when Fucking Delilah was trying to be my mom.”

“Yeap,” Percy says, sitting up. “I’m gonna go read books in the library for hours because I live in a constant state of fear that I’ll forget who I am again.”

“Shit,” Cassandra says, still lying on the ground, with her legs still on Percy’s. “It’s a good thing that we both have therapists.”

“Yeap,” Percy says, again. He lifts Cassandra’s legs off of him and stands up, then leaves the room.

At dinner, he still has the barrettes in his hair, and Cassandra takes a picture of him pretending not to know that they’re there while he talks to Scanlan.

Cassandra, eventually, discovers that her favorite candle scent now is Pine Snow.

Percival, eventually, discovers that he prefers the dinosaur room to the blue whale room.

It’s hardly a start, but it’s something.


End file.
